Broken
by GoddessofSnark
Summary: I'd seen him around here, once. This time he was here, looking broken, smelling like a distillery. And I just sat and listened.


A/N This is just something that sprang to mind after Dreamland. My friend summed things up marvelously. "I heart Garret drinking. I no heart Garret not drinking" Let's just say the Garret in my head has no qualms about, well, the narrator of this fic. I don't own Garret, I do own the narrator, but Garret belongs to NBC and Tailwind. Do enjoy, and do review.

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I look him over. He looks broken. I had seen him around here before, once. He was passed out in the snow bleeding all over himself. Tonight he had a hollow look in his eyes and you could smell the booze on him. I kinda took pity on him though, he was a real wreck. He's passed out on the bed now, sound asleep in his underwear. And I just sit here smoking, watching him, helping myself to the bottle that he had brought with him.

I knew what he was here for the moment he turned the corner. There's two things that guys like him come here for. People like me and dope. A cheap fuck or a cheap high, that's it. He's a clean cut professional type. He has no business being down here. He's got no business with me either; he looks like he has the money to afford a high-class girl, an escort, not a hooker.

But he came down here, soused as hell, saying he couldn't do it, he just couldn't do it, they all thought he had but he couldn't. Took me almost half an hour to figure out what he was muttering about was his ability to beat the bottle. Or the lack thereof. But he came up to me, flashed some dollar bills in my face and said that he had a room at this cheap place that we're in now. It's a hovel in the middle of hell and the only ones who are in here are the junkies and those picking up the women like me.

He dragged me in here and started kissing me with those sloppy kisses that all the drunks have, pushing me down on the bed. Only he was a little too drunk to perform, if you get my drift. So he decides to start pouring his heart out to me instead. And he's already paid me two hundred in cash when I usually go for fifty in cash. The least I could do for getting four times what I charge was to listen.

He was broken, it was funny, how he kept going on about how much he just wanted to end his damn problem, how he didn't want to drink, he just didn't know how to survive without it. It just was a part of him. He's stopped bleeding though, thank god, he got the bright idea to try cutting his arm open to see if he'd bleed whiskey. Naturally he didn't. But it's nothing the manager of this fine establishment hasn't seen before. I swear these sheets could throw even the best crime scene guys-even the ones from CSI off track, there's that much DNA on there. Blood and other things.

That's what he does, some forensic thing. Kept talking about crimes and cutting dead people open. And how he couldn't even do that he was drinking so much. He's apparently spent the whole weekend in hiding, afraid to go in tomorrow. I don't think he is going in tomorrow. The single motherly bone in my body is telling me to stay here with him and wake him up in time to let him call in sick. He's already given me plenty of money, and he keeps looking like he's going to puke in his sleep.

I don't even want to think of how much he's had to drink. He was just kinda stumbling along when he bumped into me and asked if I was a hooker. Just flat out asked. Not the best thing to do in this neighborhood, he's just lucky he banged into me first and not someone else. And then he flashed the bills at me and I wasn't exactly going to turn him down. But he cracked open this bottle pretty much as soon as we got inside and there was already one empty one tossed to the side.

I tuck the blanket up around him. I get pushed around a lot because I happen to be a nice person. Because I care, at least a little bit, about my clients, about why they're here. Because I'm willing to listen to their sob stories. It takes my mind off my own problems, it makes my own life seem better when I have guys like him come in, guys who lost everything they had. Guys who are going to loose everything they have because they can't stop themselves as much as they want to.

That's this guy. He knows what's going to happen. He's afraid of the fallout, but he keeps freefalling and can't stop. He knows where he's going to land if he doesn't stop, and he knows that when he lands it's going to be with a resounding splat, but he just can't stop. I feel for him, I really do. I know how he feels. He's starting to stir again and his hand is groping on the night table for the bottle that was there. I stick it in his hand and he groans slightly, taking a long swing. At least he knows how to drink and avoid a hangover. He kicks the blanket off and I frown, covering him back up again.

He mumbles something about someone named Jordan and how she needs to leave him alone to rot in peace. I don't know whether to smile or frown. "I don't want to wake up." He mumbles as I roll him back onto his side after he flops onto his back. "Just let me die."

"Stop being such a drunken fool and at least sleep on your stomach or you will." He pulls me down suddenly and I wind up on the bed, off balance. He rolls on top of me and stares in my eyes.

"You're just another whore-" He starts and starts to tear off my clothes. I'm used to this, used to the ones who are out of their heads. So long as he doesn't get too violent, I don't care. It's not like I'm one of the high class ones that have any say in things. But before he can do anything he's sprawled out next to me sobbing like a little baby, going on about how he's done this too many times before and how he doesn't want to do it again, he just has no clue how to stop it.

I just lay there, letting him cry. There's nothing I can say. Words from a hooker aren't exactly great encouragements. But I just let him sob, this might be what he needs, just to get it all off his chest. "Look at me, pouring my heart out to a hooker." He takes another long sip.

"I'm usually cheaper than a shrink." He laughs. "And I don't ask you how you feel about things. Just talk. Tell me everything."

"You're a hooker."

"Doesn't mean I can't listen." He shakes his head and I get up. "Not like you don't know where to find me, I can use guys like you who pay well." He gets up as well, staggering around the room, pulling his clothes sloppily back on, staggering out the door, leaving his bottle behind. I'm half-tempted to give it to him, its good stuff, expensive stuff, but I don't, it's just a little extra tip for me. I watch him from the window as he walks along the street, squaring his shoulders and walking as if he's completely sober the second he reaches the corner, looking every bit the respectable man I can assume he is, acting as if he's not drunk at all, as he walks out of view.

I take a long swig of the scotch he's left behind, hoping that he might just wind up OK, that he's not completely lost. He looked like he could wind up fixed, he sure does want it enough, he's not that broken, not yet.


End file.
